When SCOOBY-DOO went STRAIGHT TO VIDEO | Billiam

scooby dooby doo it's like what do i even say about this franchise man well there's a dog scooby-doo and mystery inc these teenage mystery solving degenerates are one of the most iconic group of cartoon characters ever appearing in dozens of shows dozens of movies and an ungoshly amount of merchandise scooby-doo is wild you could ask someone of nearly any age scrappy to scooby and they will have their own vision of the gang now the boomerang crowd might say they prefer a scooby-doo that has one frame of new animation per episode but i'm all about that zoomer rang do the weird experimental spin-off-filled revival era that we're still in now and what started that all was a set of straight to video movies i grew off because it did not go off when i thought it was i like many other people grew up with scooby-doo it was always the thing that was on when i was home sick from school my favorite episodes were the ones with scrappy do that's not a joke i loved scrappy as a little kid and i hated that he was the villain in the first movie part of what i loved about scooby-doo is it seems like such an intergenerational thing my parents watched scooby-doo as a kid so when we watched it together i didn't have to sit there and try to explain who every single character was however when it came to the first set of straight to home video movies i felt like these were mine this is the first of a few scooby-doo videos i'm intending on doing this fall if it does well i'll make it an annual tradition and if it doesn't do well i'm going to take it out back and put it down like scrappy do i'm not saying i like him as an adult but i do i'm just trying to hide it with edgy humor so let's take a look at the first four scooby movies and figure out how scooby-doo got his groove back it's the hex girls but first this video is sponsored by verve head out to vrv.co billiam to get a 30 day free trial of verve premium i've said it once and i'll say it again but i love verve whether i'm at home browsing trying to find something new or at the gym using verv's offline sync feature to watch stuff while i'm not connected to the internet verve always has something for me to watch and because verve's available on a wide variety of streaming devices i can start and stop watching pretty much at my total convenience verve has a great selection of care related content from crunchyroll nick splatt and cartoon network's boomerang which is what inspired me to do all of my upcoming scooby-doo videos that i'll be doing throughout the fall months and october so if you don't follow me on twitter this is going to be the first in a few scooby-doo videos that i'm going to be doing throughout the halloween season in order to get into a spooky mood and if you want after this video both scooby-doo and the witch's ghost and scooby-doo and the alien invaders are available on verve premium so you can give them a watch after this video which i highly recommend doing the next scooby-doo video i'm going to be doing will be about mid-october and it's going to be on scooby-doo where are you the original scooby-doo series which is available to watch in its entirety on verve at the end of that video i'm going to do a little mailbag segment where i'm going to read your comments aloud so please share with me your favorite villains episodes or just moments of the series that you want me to react to i figure this can be a fun way to make this series fun and interactive just be sure to comment down below and include the word mailbag so the comment is easy for me to find when i'm getting ready to produce the next video so join in the fun and head out to vrv.co billiam to get a 30 day free trial of verve premium and thank you again to verve for sponsoring this video by the late 80s scooby-doo was not the hot property it once was and that's not cause scooby-doo himself wasn't a handsome boy anymore that couldn't be farther from the truth but after 20 years of spin-offs notorious character additions in tv movies the scooby train just wasn't pumping like it used to but in the mid 90s ted turner looked at hannah barbera and said i want that time warner had absorbed all of hannah barbara's properties and cartoon network it was wild and i'm giving an approximate approximation of how it all went down because i was neither alive or there warner brothers had no idea what to do with scooby-doo and they were just like uh i i don't know do a direct to video movie we don't we don't really give a [ __ ] we're we're really really sleepy brb we're gonna go make a superman movie with a giant spider the team assembled to create this new scooby project was a group of hanna-barbera creators including some who had worked on previous scooby-doo shows the story would be written by glenn leopold and davis doy since this was a foot and water kind of approach for scooby-doo warner brothers kind of viewed it as an experiment and gave the creative team very little oversight undersight they were essentially given no time limit to complete the project and were just told to hand over the final product whenever they were done however after seeing the final product warner brothers threw 50 million towards marketing with promotional tie-ins and using their brand new shiny channel cartoon network to air a scooby-doo marathon leading up to the tv premiere of the brand spanking new scooby-doo on zombie island zombie island was probably my least viewed of the original four films not because i didn't like it but because we didn't own it on vhs every time i saw it growing up it was because cartoon network was re-airing it and every single time they would rear it they would hype it up like it was some big deal and you know what it is a big deal the scooby gang was finally back after 10 years and they're sporting an all-new look not only because of their new outfits but because they're a few years older now see they finally grew eyes around their pupils so a few years after splitting up the scooby gang are now living their adult lives scooby and shaggy work airport contraband security velma owns an independent bookstore and daphne hosts a tv show that fred is the primary camera operator for encouraged by fan feedback daphne decides to get the gang back together as they head out across america in an attempt to find a real monster this leads them to louisiana where they find their real monster also known as the locals the gang has led to an island owned by a wealthy recluse and soon real zombies it's up to the gang to solve the mystery before they i don't know die i knew this was highly regarded amongst fans but i'm still shocked how enjoyable it is what makes it work is the balance between the silliness of scooby-doo but the respect for the horror aesthetic maybe it's real it's very tightly written it's funny but i think the biggest plus behind it is the cinematic pacing i mean it gets quiet scooby-doo is a show that's really hesitant to take a breather between jokes sound effects and music there's always an auditorial sensory overload heading at you but this is paced like a horror movie before it goes down it gets quiet this more subdued tone also helps daphne fred and velma come off like real people which is kind of odd to say however scooby and shaggy still live in the original scooby doo's tonal world complete with over-inflating their stomachs when they eat running away with cute sound effects and you know a talking dog scooby-doo has always embraced a william castle aesthetic but zombie island is full george romero it's fleshy it's dark and it's a bit violent not overly so but enough to say wow this is scooby-doo and of course the classic scooby-doo soundtrack is cut for a more fitting horror soundtrack and while i love the original scooby-doo soundtrack especially this is more fitting for what they're going for but that doesn't mean they don't have fun with their music montages which also get a more grunge heavy metal update this movie began a short trend of bringing in famous musicians to do the scooby-doo theme song this time it's third eye blind and scooby-doo and the witch's ghost it's billy ray cyrus this is a really fresh feeling movie and it still holds up there is a twist at the end that's a little out there but if you can get over your immediate reaction it makes the movie that much more fun it's a treat seeing these characters i'm used to seeing drawn and animated on a really low budget actually given a fair chance if you have any fond memories of scooby-doo growing up i really recommend tracking these down and watching it they're really really fun zombie island was an unexpected success for warner brothers and production immediately began on the next scooby movie scooby-doo and the witch's ghost however with success came a tighter leash where zombie island was a one-off experiment warner now knew scooby-doo could be a heavy hitting franchise so instead of infinite creative freedom warner assigned a contracted screenwriter to work on the project this clash with the creative team who ended up rewriting the ending of the film to continue the inclusion of real supernatural elements the witch's ghost is the scooby movie i'm most familiar with because it was the one we owned on vhs and most likely because of that it is my favorite of the original scooby movies after the scooby gang solves a mystery at a museum they're approached by ben ravencroft a famous horror author who invites the scooby gang to his new england hometown's autumn harvest festival when they arrived ben is shocked how commercialized the festival has become but this doesn't stop him and velma from getting a little closer to each other [Music] sorry [Music] that's pretty [ __ ] cute right there ravencroft is the descendant of a wiccan medic whose legacy has been feared of for decades every year ravencroft returns home to see the festival and attempt to find his ancestor's diary which could potentially clear her name the gang soon encounters an evil witch but it's soon discovered to be a fake created by the mayor in mr mcknight the father of thorne the lead singer of the hex girls and the first time i felt my heartbeat [Music] however after retrieving the diary it turns out ravencroft may be a bit more sinister than he let on i really like these incarnations of the characters seeing velma infatuated with ravencroft and fred and daphne's will they or won't they dynamic adds a bit more depth to the characters which is definitely not present in the original series and while shaggy and scooby are still wolfing down every piece of food that's in front of them instead of them eating really gross combinations they're now more foodies than anything else it's kind of cool also fred likes goth girls that's the kind of character development i needed i love seeing a more velma centric story the actor who plays velma bj ward is certainly different than her previous iterations but it's refreshing to hear you did it guys in zombie island i don't really think billy west slipped comfortably into shaggy but he was replaced by scott innis who also voiced scooby-doo in these movies like we'd love to but we haven't had our dessert yet and i think he does a much better job however the highlight of which is ghost is tim curry as ben ravencroft it's great i didn't even realize it was him until he went full evil at the end of the movie and therefore full tim curry you can't solve me so easily thorn and the hex girls are great addition to the scooby doo mythos where scooby and the gang are 60s sears ad models adding late 90s goth girls to the mix are great especially watching this retroactively where it just seems like these two eras clashing with each other thorin also plays a role of a hidden protagonist which is something i've seen in the sonic the hedgehog games like sonic scooby and the gang above all else are brand icons who must continue to adhere to the viewers perception of them this makes storytelling kind of hard because in a traditional three-act story you expect the characters to experience some kind of growth however you really can't change the scooby gang all that much so introducing another character who can experience growth is always a good way to make sure you can still tell that kind of narrative witch's ghost continues the dark ass static and at times it looks like an anime like if you told me there was a japanese adaptation of scooby-doo and showed me screenshots from this i would not be surprised japanese-based mooc studios did the animation work for the initial few movies and it definitely makes them feel different from previous scooby outings some of the shots are great including the first shot of the real witch and the shot of ravencroft when he first uses magic i also love the music video segments with the hex girls oh i think the compromises they had to make works for the story's benefit the original ending for the story had the town's people making up the witch to promote the festival but the true ending in the final version is ben ravencroft resurrecting the ghost of his ancestors and learning magical powers however they incorporated both into the final version this combination of a non-supernatural antagonist followed by a twist with real supernatural villains works really well for scooby-doo and it even carries over into the next film overall it's a really enjoyable follow-up also i love thorn after the complications with the witch's ghost script the original creative team of zombie island was given a pretty free range of creative control with the follow-up scooby-doo and the alien invaders next year the gang finds themselves with the van broken down near roswell new mexico nearly 60 years after fry becomes his own grandpa shaggy and scooby get abducted by aliens they start to investigate the town including a ufo nut a hot-tempered mechanic researchers at a government base and a hippie nature photographer and her golden retriever who of course gained the affection of shaggy and scooby shaggy and scooby's story is really really cute and it has this fun little song about shaggy and scooby's imagined life with their potential new gfs it's a highlight of the entire film series however the big alien twist is that these aliens are fake and she's actually an alien so shaggy doesn't get to live happily ever after i always like it when characters are attracted to somebody and yet continue to help them after being rejected shaggy and scooby attempts to be brave for crystal and even help her do stuff but it's under the guise that they'll eventually be able to do this but shaggy and scooby end up risking their lives to save them even after discovering that they can't do this so it's nice however shaggy deserves to be happy dammit get shaggy to area 51 so he could see them aliens while i enjoyed alien invaders it's definitely not as strong as the other two in my opinion i really really like the storyline of shaggy trying to impress crystal but it comes at the detriment of the other characters who end up not having too much to do overall it's a strong follow-up but not as strong as the previous two with these three movies you can really see where the creative team wanted to bring scooby-doo and i really like it it's kind of this americana horror celebration with folk legends and settings with strong personalities being at the center of the story whether it's voodoo magic in louisiana witches in massachusetts or aliens in roswell there's intrigue within the cultural settings that these movies take place in doesn't anybody want a beignet it's celebratory with its inclusion of local food and the folklore origin which makes it seem a little more thought out than just themed bad guy well it's an odd comparison i look at these movies in kind of the same way i look at daniel craig's james bond well daniel craig's bond exists in a post austin powers world where it's kind of reactionary to the critiques that brought on scooby-doo kind of exists in a post-buffy the vampire slayer world the original scoobies are now complete with creepy supernatural horror and heavy metal guitar riffs these films were rad as hell and while it wasn't the first time in the series to feature real super natural elements it was the first in the series to lean heavily into the horror aesthetic of scooby-doo and to make the inclusion of real monsters more of a shock to the characters this is new territory for them i mean dark lighting mild violence and ah real monsters check these three out they're pretty short have a great look and are genuinely really fun but alright on to the final film scooby doo and the cyber chase this film is the last of this team's run on scooby movies and between the production troubles and the final product i see why they chose to leave so cyberchase was my favorite of these films as a kid but also spy kids 3d game over was my favorite spy kids film as a kid so you really shouldn't trust kid billiam i just think having a video game setting was something pretty cool for the time because it's not something you saw much back then the video game enthusiast generation hadn't yet grown up and taken over creative roles in hollywood so it was kind of rare to see a video game reference that was anything above mario's italian like the witch's ghost this time warner brothers had heavy oversight over the production assigning a writer who had never worked in animation and while the format of writing screenplays is similar between the two the screenwriter didn't take into account animation has budgetary restrictions writing in complex settings and camera movements into the script which frustrated the team beyond belief however warner brothers finally saw how much of a cash cow scooby-doo could be along with the movie came two video games and a wendy's toy tie-in both of which required significant foresight which is probably why the creative team was on such a tight leash everything had to be coordinated also at the time of its production warner had greenlit the first scooby-doo show in nearly 15 years what's new scooby-doo and production of the live-action film was underway i enjoyed cyberchase enough but it's definitely a steep departure from what the previous three brought to the table i wasn't really super engaged i thought the humor took a huge step backwards and suddenly became much more juvenile and the pacing which made the other films feel like films rather than tv episodes is just gone the change in tone is also complemented by the fact that this is the first scooby movie to be digitally colored so while there are some dark shadowed scenes the more subdued look is gone instead opting for max saturation which was common for early digitally colored shows so after a humanoid computer virus escapes from a video game into the real world the scooby gang are called in to investigate at a local university they follow the virus back into the video game that's based on their life as mystery solvers after running through the game they reach the final level where they meet their video game counterparts designed like the original where are you iterations they beat the level and after some pretty obvious clues involving baseball they discover who created the virus and the movie ends the best part of the movie is in the last third when they encounter their younger selves there's some funny gags and one-liners here and there hey you guys i didn't see how we were gonna split up why do we ever do it any other way but this is a 70-minute movie for a 22-minute show that's fine and dandy but the reason why you go with a more traditionally paced movie for a movie is because it's a movie and it needs to last four times longer right from the get-go it's a sensory overload and it never lets up however this movie does have my favorite music montage as they're going through all the different levels but the trade-off is my least favorite music montage that goes on far too long when they run into their younger selves it's like this stock music library track i blame it on the budget being spread too thin as far as scooby-doo content goes i wouldn't say cyber chase is particularly bad but it drops the ball as the last film in a run that really tried to push the concept of the show into new territory maybe if i ever did a part two to my scooby film retrospective and maybe if i was judging this film along with the later scooby-doo movies my opinion on it would be different but it has the unfortunate circumstance of following up a really fresh take on the series and because of that it seems really regressive after cyberchase the entire team who worked on these films would go on to work on other projects leaving scooby-doo behind the movies would go on to be based on the what's new scooby-doo aesthetic until 2009. afterwards a more classic look would be adopted for these movies which has been the style the series has gone with ever since however the legacy of these original four movies continues throughout the series today the hex girls have made numerous reappearances later scooby series would also try to adopt a darker aesthetic in just this year scooby-doo returned the zombie island a sequel to the original film was released and although it didn't do much to replicate the original style it shows that someone at warner brothers understands the impact these films had i think what i would want to see from the scooby-doo movies is something a little closer to warner brothers animated batman movies scooby-doo has seen so many iterations that i feel like it would make sense sometimes depending on the story to have different actors come in to play the characters or have a different art style but these movies are pumped out so fast now sometimes two to three a year that i really don't know how practical something like that would be but there was that puppet one so i don't know so in a few weeks i'm gonna be taking a look at scooby-doo where are you it's not going to be the next video but until then i'm going to go run down to walmart and yell at all of the kids there because their scooby-doo isn't as good as my scooby-doo so anyways thank you for watching this video remember i have the verve question down below you can go watch scooby doo where are you right on verve other than that if you want to check out some of my other videos there's a bunch of videos posted here you can subscribe and check me out on social media the links are in the description down below anyways thank you for watching the next video won't be the next scooby video but i'll see you with new scooby-doo content in a few weeks thanks

Channel: Billiam

Views: 658,815

Keywords: Scooby Doo, Billiam, Scooby Doo On Zombie Island, Scooby Doo and the Witch's Ghost, Scooby Doo and the Alien Invaders, Scooby doo and the cyber chase, Hannah Barbera, Scooby-Doo, Boomerang, Cartoon Network, Nostalgia

Id: Ipxntgybduw

Length: 22min 51sec (1371 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 24 2019